Claustrophobic
by Dil Se
Summary: In a cupboard


Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters created by the esteemed J.K. Rowling and owned by WB. Also to sue me would be foolish as am a mere student. A/N: my previous story was shit to put it lightly so I attempted to write it differently. I hope that it is even slightly better than my previous story. And yes is slightly angsty.  
  
Prologue  
  
It had been barely three weeks and Harry had already lost most of the weight that he had put on in school. It was surprising really, that no one had found out, that no one noticed that he left looking markedly healthier and returned scrawny and shockingly pale.  
  
Of course they didn't see the bruises, he had began to use concealing charms as soon as he found the appropriate book and learnt the spell. He always wore long sleeves and pants, even in the summer, that way they couldn't see the scars. He had learnt at a young age not to wince or show pain when someone bumped into him or slapped him on the back.  
  
His uncle hadn't been to happy when his primary school teacher came round to inquire about Harry's health. That induced a rather savage beating. Vernon had told the teacher that Harry was awfully frail and they were taking him to the seaside, Doctor's orders. They did indeed go to the seaside; Harry however was locked in his cupboard for the long weekend. It wasn't so bad; he had 'borrowed' some books off Dudley.  
  
It wasn't like he was ever going to read them, illiterate as he was. He had a veritable library hidden behind a loose panel. (A/n: yes the Dursley's house is full of loose panels and floorboards). Reading was the only thing he could do during his long bouts of punishment for doing anything remotely abnormal or for that matter anything that drew attention to him.  
  
By his 9th birthday Harry had become extremely well read and eloquent, however Harry knew better than to display his intelligence to anyone, lest it get back to his imbecilic relatives whose amazing narrow-mindedness made it easy to hide any form of intelligence, as they weren't at all perceptive in any way. They certainly didn't notice that many of Dudley's books had gone missing. As, of course, Dudley didn't need all those fickle pursuits; he was a manly man, just like his father. He was indeed a rival to Vernon's incredible weight but Harry didn't think Petunia meant it in that context.  
  
Harry didn't have any friends, that was true, but frankly he didn't trust anyone well enough to consider them anything remotely close to friends. When he began to attend Hogwarts, he had to put up a façade so that people would believe he would trust them. It was blindingly obvious that he couldn't though, every time something new about him came up, his own friends would desert him. Ron for all his Gryffindor loyalty, was remarkably fickle when it came to their friendship. It was as if he was merely friends with the Boy-who-Lived, not Harry. For they were two very different people. The Boy-Who-Lived was the ultimate Gryffindor, saviour of the wizarding world; defeater of Voldemort, Quidditch Champion, Slytherin hater, the list went on.  
  
Harry wasn't any of these things, he wasn't the ultimate Gryffindor; as it was a toss-up between that and Slytherin and his eleven-year-old mind relied on the prejudices instilled by Hagrid and the Weasleys and the attitude of Draco Malfoy. He wasn't the saviour of the wizarding world as it was his mother's love that saved him and the countless others who worked to defeat Voldemort. He liked Quidditch well enough but he didn't see any importance behind it and he preferred flying without rules. It made him feel free.  
  
He didn't hate Slytherins either, he couldn't. He sympathised with a lot of them, they were ostracized just because they were in reputably the evilest house and for fear that they would turn dark, no one trusted them. He understood why the lashed out and indeed why the majority of dark wizards came from Slytherin; If you were shunned simply because of your house you would be a little ticked off. Slytherins also had to work notably harder to get anywhere due to the level of distrust the name provoked.  
  
The only person Harry could trust was on the run, due to that imbecile Fudge who insisted on pretending all was well. It was his fault that the resurrection of Voldemort went unnoticed by the wizarding public. And Harry couldn't do anything about it. It wasn't as if he hadn't a great deal of contact with the wizarding world anyway. The war was coming and he was expected to fight at the front. He was expected to defeat Voldemort or die trying, how would they react if Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, was killed by an overweight muggle due to a slightly burnt breakfast. 


End file.
